Kim Jin-Hyeon unavailable against Urawa Reds

The season has just started last week but already a few players are suffering from injury. Here’s pre-match information ahead of the matchday 2 meeting with Urawa Reds.

Kim Jin-Hyeon with backache

In addition to Hiroshi Kiyotake who is still unfit and Kota Mizunuma who got injured in the last game, Kim Jin-Hyeon felt a pain on his lower back and won’t be available against Urawa Reds, according to today’s report by Sports Nippon.

Good news is that it’s just a minor one. It’s not impossible for him to play tomorrow, but the season is long so just to be on the safe side, he will be excluded from the squad list, as Kim himself told the press. Kenta Tanno is very likely to stand in front of the goal tomorrow.

Yamamura as a forward?

Rather surprising news is that manager Yoon Jong-Hwan was trying another option, which was to place Kazuya Yamamura at forward along with Kenyu Sugimoto, in an intra-squad game yesterday. Although neither Nikkan Sports nor Sports Nippon made clear, in that match Yoichiro Kakitani probably played as a left midfielder, a position emptied by Mizunuma’s injury.

Actually Yamamura is not totally new to that position as he experienced it when he was playing at Kunimi High School, but of course he is mainly a defensive midfielder (and can also play as a center back). So it may not be natural to predict that he will play in that position from the start of the game tomorrow. But at the same time, we know he has a surprisingly good ability to compete for high ball, as he showed several times last season. So it may be a good option to take when the team want to change the momentum of a game.